Features

When Richard Lippold in 1961 accepted the commission for a hanging sculpture in the lobby of what was then the Philharmonic Hall at Manhattan’s rising Lincoln Center, he could scarcely have been expected to be thinking of the imminent Second Vatican Council… Six years later, though, when Lippold received the commission for a piece above the high altar of the new Cathedral of St. Mary of the Assumption in San Francisco…

The Catholic Church has long been a patron of and great repository for the arts in the Western world.  In its 2,000-year history, the Church has been responsible for the commissioning of countless masterworks in architecture, music, painting, and sculpture. Over time, the forms have evolved, but what is central to the messages they convey has not changed. The Second Vatican Council… initiated changes that, in the long timeline of the Church, were indeed abrupt.